Failed State

Documenting Juarez's demise

Julian Cardona has been photographing the streets of Juarez, Mexico, since 1993, collecting evidence of what he considers the debilitating effects of globalization on his city. These days, his work focuses mostly on violence. In the first two months of 2010, an estimated 378 people were murdered in Juarez, pushing the city's death toll to more than 4,500 in the last two years. When Cardona started his career, times were already tough on the border. Today, the situation is considerably worse. "Everything is harder," he says. "Everything is more violent."

I am glad to see someone is interested in what Juarez has become. Having been there briefly in 1968, I met warm, friendly people. Where and why has this town become so violent. What has happened to the soul of its people and the people who move there.Will the murder of all those young women, left in the desert, ever be solved? I feel for the good people who live there.